The Noble Six Situation
by The Noble Scarecrow
Summary: Reach is falling, the Covenant are thwarting Humanity's best efforts to stop them. But that's the least of Noble Team's problems. They have to deal with something even more dangerous than the Covenant: an emotionally compromised Noble Six! My 1st Fan-fic.
1. Chapter 1

At the Office of Naval Intelligence "Olympic" Tower:

Kat was pacing back and forth uneasily around the executive office of the Olympic tower. Carter was slumped with his head in his hands, sitting in the broken leather chair that had been previously owned by the Head of ONI Operation on Reach. The legs of the chair had already snapped off, the cushioning was coming out the back but Carter had still found it comfortable; and surprisingly solid considering the fact that it was support his weight while still in full armor.

They had already broken the news to the rest of Noble team a few hours ago. Jun was silenced when he heard the news. He then grabbed a pair of high power binoculars and proceeded to scan the sky of Covenant areal movement. This was just a ruse to make him appear busy, so the rest of Noble team wouldn't see his tears. Emile went down to the floor below and proceeded to smash out all the windows before moving onto the floors below in his rampage all the way down to the ground floor.

Kat knew that the worst was yet to come. She found that moving around helped her think and she would need all the thinking power her brilliant mind could muster. Noble Six was her main concern. She was never any good at dealing with emotional problems. A barely functioning door junction with plasma damage she could fix with no problem. But consoling an emotionally compromised hyper-lethal Spartan III? This would prove to be a challenge.

"Look we have to be very, very delicate with Noble's situation here." Kat said to Carter. "The loss of Jorge has already hit the rest of the team hard; but we especially don't want to antagonize Six any more than he is already."

Carter raised his head and nodded in agreement. "Yeah, I mean from the way I saw him before, back at the landing pad, he may be one wrong remark short of an emotional breakdown." he said sitting up in the chair. "So what do you think we should do from here?"

"Well, we aren't leaving until those communications jammers are taken out," she said continuing her pacing, "but I don't want to shake him down first thing when he gets back. I mean Six has done more than his fair share in the past few missions we've had here on Reach. Hell, he practically completed Operation UPPERCUT all by himself. I mean he was the one who led the fire teams that took over that Corvette. Jorge basically just babysat the slip-space bomb in the meantime. Besides, you don't just ask point blank someone who just lost his friend through an unforeseen complication, what went wrong? Right"

"Well, yeah that's true. But what is our contingency for him? I mean you have got to appreciate what an explosive element Noble Six could be." He asked, turning to Kat.

"Well put yourself in his boots for a second." She said as she walked over to where Carter was sitting. "We should take in mind that it was Jorge who insisted that he set off the Slip-space drive instead of Six. He wouldn't have expected that. After all Jorge was a Spartan II, whereas the rest of us Nobles are Spartan IIIs. We have to remember that we IIIs are the most expendable of the Spartan generations."

"Yeah I guess." Carter shrugged in acknowledgement, "But aren't you worried about how he'll act when we do confront him?"

"He's going to have to vent somewhere that I will concede." She said as she leaned on the chair. "That's why I sent him out into New Alexandria to take out those jammers. Hopefully, by killing off the Covenant forces that are hampering our progress, he will be able to vent out the bulk of his rage before returning to us." she made sure to point out to him.

"Well let's hope he doesn't get too brutal. I've read that he once made whole militia groups disappear with nothing but a stick of gum and a rock the size of an orange. So on the off chance we do upset him, we have to be prepared. I mean there's no telling what he'll do. Alright?" he asked looking up to Kat

"Understood, when you talk to him, make sure to emphasize that Noble's loss was not his fault. You always were the better at relating to people than I was." She assured him, patting him on the shoulder with her bionic arm.

As she began to walk towards the elevator Carter suggested something she never would have expected. "Actually, Kat, I think that you should be the first one to talk to Six once he gets back."

Kat was stopped in her tracks. Turning her head to Carter she asked "Wait, what! Why me?"

"He seems to have the '**_hots_**' for you."

Kat felt her face slightly redden at Carter's statement. "Wha-, what the-, what the hell are you talking about Carter?" she said trying to sound oblivious to the idea.

It didn't work. Carter simply rolled his eyes at her response. "Oh please Kat, you can't honestly tell me you haven't noticed." he said tilting his head to one side while giving her an incredulous look. "It's pretty obvious Kat." Carter said as he began counting off his 'evidence' on his fingers, "Like how he always perked up whenever he heard that he would be accompanying you on a mission. Or how he listened oh so intently to whatever you had to say during the debriefings. Let's not forget that in each instance where Six had saved one of us from being over whelmed how he neutralized the Coveys threatening you by **_dismembering_** them."

"So? That doesn't necessarily mean that he-"

"Or my personal favorite and by far the most noticeable indicator. How he has blatantly stated, on several different occasions and in which the rest of the team was present, how he finds you very attractive and how he immediately defends himself with…" He retorted, adding with a mock personification of Noble Six "**_What, am I wrong_**?"

"Carter, I hardly think that-" she started trying to sound professional before being cut off by Carter.

"That what, Kat? That it's impossible our newest member could develop a crush on a brilliant, tough, independent and beautiful young woman such as you?" he said defending himself with another "**_Am I Wrong_**?"

"But, I don't-"

"And don't you dare, say that the feeling isn't mutual Kat." Carter said pointing an accusatory finger at her in mock seriousness.

"**_WHAT_**!"

"What was that closing line you said to Six, before you sent him on his way? Something about him 'falling in love with your voice', Kat?" he said raising one of his eyebrows, that same arrogant smile still on his face.

Kat turned away from Carter in a huff to make sure he couldn't see her ever reddening face. As she stormed off to the elevator she could hear Carter chuckling behind her. Upon entering the elevator she quickly hit the button to close the doors. Before they closed she heard Carter say in an 'innocent' tone "Hey suit yourself, I'm just saying that it may not be such a bad idea for him to hear some reassurance from a **_desirable_** source such as yourself, that's all."

Kat had heard enough. Her cheeks now glowing crimson, she hurled her helmet at Carter, in an attempt to shut him up. Carter easily ducked away from her projectile which only amused him more. Seeing the rise he had gotten out of her, his chuckling grew into a full blown laugh. As the elevator doors shut she could still hear Carter laughing.

In the elevator as it went traveling down, as Kat tried to calm herself she stood there recalling those moments Carter had mentioned. Contrary to what she said to Carter, she had in fact taken particular notice of Six during those moments.

When Noble team first received the Lieutenant, she personally had found Six's presence on the squad to be a bit insulting, given the loss of Thom just a few weeks prior. She had initially giving him the cold shoulder. Over the next 4 weeks she grew less and less hostile towards him. Six had acted very differently that what she had expected from reading his dossier.

She had actually come around to enjoy having Six on the squad. He had a very inquisitive, sharp and understanding personality. He was also a very insightful tactician as she would find out in their later missions together. She found it refreshing to have another intellect she could relate to. He had further impressed her when Noble had partaken in the evacuation of local civilian orphanage. She had seen this keen, almost savage warrior turn into the equivalent of a Spartan teddy bear. It was rather funny to see the true nurturing persona of Six emerge from his shell for the rest of Noble to see, and later bust his balls about. He had been all that Thom had been during his time on the team… _and more_.

As the elevator stopped and the doors opened, Kat thought about the last thing she heard Carter say. "You had better be right about this Carter." She thought to herself. "Otherwise, there will be Hell to pay!"


	2. Chapter 2

O.N.I. Olympic Tower

Noble Six was leaning against the wall of the hallway next to the elevators on the fifty second floor. He had been on his way up to where the rest of Noble team had assembled. But something in his mind kept him from entering the elevator. He would walk up towards the elevators he would hesitate and then walk right on past them into the next hall way.

This habit had persisted for almost ten minutes and now he was getting fed up with it himself. So he had stopped himself to figure out exactly what was preventing him from meeting with Noble Team. It wasn't the fact that he had to explain to his team how Jorge died. Six had already procured a data-pad and had prepared a well-documented after-action report and had uploaded it into the data storage module inside his helmet. It retold the situation on the Covenant corvette, the Ardent Prayer, as Six had witnessed or at least what he could best assume of what transpired on board. He wasn't concerned with addressing specifics.

It was what the others thought of his disposition, that he feared. The material he had written was worded professionally, devoid of empathy or personal connection to what befell the strike team. He feared being held by his fellow Spartans as a cold blooded operative once again. As a hard liner willing to accept whatever necessities were needed to get the job done. It was a stereotype that B312 had been working so hard to disassociate himself from ever since 'The Incident'…

(_Flashback_)

Visegrad Relay Outpost

July 24th, 2552

It was B-312's first mission functioning as Noble Team's replacement 'Six', and so far things had been going rather well. Except of course for the fact that he and his fellow Spartans were being attacked left and right by alien invaders, but that didn't concern him that much. In fact, Six was having a pretty good day so far, at least by his standards.

After having successfully held off the Covenant outside the relay outpost, Noble Team had finally entered the complex and had begun clearing the interior. As Six moved into the control room he could see the body of a scientist in a white lab coat lying face down on the floor in a pool of his own blood. A red flag was drawn up in his mind.

'_What was a person in a lab coat doing in a hard hat area like a Communications Relay?_' He thought as he approached the body. The other elements of Noble team began filing into the room, moving to make sure the room was clear. As soon as Noble One, A259-Carter, gave the all clear signal, Six dropped down to a squat and began inspecting the body.

'_Lab scientists aren't part of a relay station's designated personnel_. _Unless this guy was calling someone from the U.N.S.C. or maybe the O.N.I._' Six continued to speculate as he began patting down the body for anything important._ 'But then what was he calling for?'_

"Where's the rest of your squad?" Carter said. Hearing this Six turned to Noble One, who was trying to speak to a severely wounded Army Corporal. The soldier was in bad shape, from what Six could tell from reading his wounds.

"We got separated." The soldier said weakly. "I think they…" the soldier paused, wincing in pain from his injuries. "I-it sounded bad on the comms."

'_He's not gonna make it._' Six thought to himself grimly. '_Trooper's condition is terminal, thus irrelevant. Continue searching._' His mind corrected itself as he continued patting down the corpse.

"Alright, hang tight Corporal. We'll get you a combat surgeon." Carter tried to reassure the Trooper with a friendly pat on the shoulder. Unfortunately that only aggravated one of his plasma burns, causing the wounded soldier to yelp out in pain. To which Carter quickly retracted his hand and replied "Sorry."

As this was going on Six had begun to flip the scientist's body over when something glowing and metallic fell out of the pocket of the lab coat. 'What is thi-?'

"Damn." He heard Noble Two, Catherine, curse. Six raised his head towards his fellow Spartan, only to get an eyeful of her posterior. '_Damn is right_.' He admitted to himself, only to be auto corrected by his conscience screaming at him '_THAT MAY BE TRUE, BUT GET BACK TO YOUR SEARCH BEFORE SOMEONE SEES YOU __GODDAMNIT__!_' He quickly corrected himself, hearing Kat say something about 'plasma damage', and redirected his attention to what had dropped out of the lab coat of the scientist. Picking up the glowing data module, Six raised the mechanism to eye level. '_What is this_?'

"Found something." Six said out loud. Kat's attention was drawn from the fried terminal to this new piece of technology in Six's hands. She quickly snatched the data device over studiously.

"I'll take that Six. Not your domain." Was all the response Six received from Kat. '_You're welcome_.' Six thought to himself.

"I got a live one over here!" Jorge hollered from the section of the room. Everyone turned to see Jorge pulling out a civilian woman in her early 20s. Jorge tried to calm her down, but she was in a frenzy shouting in Hungarian, fruitlessly trying to pry her arm from Jorge's grip. After a brief struggle, Jorge subdued her enough to hear her say something in Hungarian which made him stiffen up. Six was about to ask Jorge what she had said, when suddenly an elite strike team dropped down from their hiding places, deactivated their stealth fields and attacked the team.

Now the scenario had shifted Six's mindset. Gone was his previous mode of passive intelligence gathering. Now he found himself in an ambush situation. There were three of them, clad in maroon armor and frilled helmets. Six could tell they were Zealots, elite sangheili commandos armed to the teeth with heavy shielding and devastating weapons.

Jorge, using himself as a barrier, pulled the previously hysteric survivor down and out of the way of the oncoming attack. This brave, albeit feeble action managed to get him and the civilian out of the elite's line of sight but not out of harm's way. They would have been easily discovered had their attention not been diverted away by Noble Six shouting "Contacts". With their attention redirected towards the other Spartans, the elites began their attack on their human foes. The first elite, who appeared to be the leader from the energy sword he was armed with, leaped forward to engage his human foes.

The Spartan's automatically identified and prioritized him as the immediate threat. He had to be taken down first. Almost simultaneously Noble team began firing at their split faced assailant. The lead elite heading the charge had his shielding dropped by the combined fully automatic fire from Noble One and Six's assault rifles, but due to his powerful legs it managed to close the distance between them before any real damage could be inflicted. Noble Team was caught off guard by the elites' burst of speed, sheer luck Carter managed to get Kat to duck down far enough to avoid the initial swing of the elite's energy sword. Noble Six kept firing in to the flank the elite at point blank range, expelling what ammo remained in his magazine. The elite lunged straight past him bounding towards the exit, knocking over Six in the process and effectively separating the Spartan from his now empty rifle.

Six, undaunted by his fall, reached for his side arm and attempted to pull off another round at his unshielded foe. Unfortunately as Six's pull out his magnum, another elite had pounced upon him and tried to gut him with its energy dagger. With lightning fast reflexes Six grabbed the elites' right arm with his free left hand, redirecting the blade away from his armored body. Then with his right hand clutching his magnum, Six pistol-whipped the elite square in the face, failing to drop its energy shields but with enough force to earn him a fierce growl from his assailant.

Again Six managed to pistol whip the elite, but by this time Six had wrenched the energy dagger out of the elite's grasp. Now Carter, having been previously engaged with the third elite, had seen Six in distress and moved to kick the elite off his downed squad mate. Reaching out with his now free left hand, Six grabbed the collar of the elite's armor and was able to roll with the elite so that Six was now positioned on top. Having gained the upper hand, Six jammed his magnum into the elite's mouth and started shooting at point blank range into the elite's cranium.

After dispatching his second attacker, Six picked himself up off of his dead foe and raised his magnum to bear against the remaining elite, currently positioned in front of the doorway way into the other room. Unfortunately during Six's melee with his Zealot comrade, the remaining elite had meanwhile managed to pick up the wounded Corporal lying in the corner and was now using him as a human shield. Carter, Kat and Six were now facing the elite with his unwilling cover shouting in protest and pain. Neither of the two sides moved against the other. Noble Six checked the ammo counter on his visor; it read only one round left in the magazine.

Six calculated the statistics of the current situation.

The soldier wouldn't survive long enough for the medevac to save him, no matter what anyone did.

Noble Six only had one round left in his clip.

The Spartan team he was with was holding their fire, their reasons unknown to B-312.

The Elite must know and expect other humans to care for their fellow man, which was why he chose to take the Corporal as a hostage.

The soldier wasn't wearing his helmet.

In an instant, Six had made his decision. Six leveled his weapon, aimed down its sights and squeezed the trigger.

_**BANG!**_

The Trooper's skull split open sending blood and brain matter out through the bullets exit wound and all over the front of the Zealot, into its face and eyes. The elite, in a mix of shock and disgust, dropped the lifeless body of the Corporal and began wiping at his face. Six immediately dropped his empty side arm, not bothering to reload. Unsheathing his combat knife, Six began charging full speed at the distracted elite.

"Nam, tihs hho, Gnineppah s'kcuf eht tahw, hha!" The elite managed to snarl before being knocked over by Six. Falling over on his back the elite was helpless as Six pinned him to the ground and plunged his knife down, deep into the elite's left eye socket. Instinctively, Six twisted his blade left and right, ignoring the shrieks of the elite shuddering beneath him.

Carter and Kat had lowered their weapons watching their new Noble Six attack the elite, registering what had just occurred. Noble Six had just eliminated the hostage. No warning, no sign of restraint, no chance of target misidentification. Six had just deliberately executed a fellow soldier of the UNSC, with the intent of inconveniencing and enemy combatant. This kind of a situation never happened before with Noble Team. This situation had never happened to any Spartan team, as far as they knew.

Behind them they could hear the frantic screaming in Hungarian again from the civilian. Having seen the actions of Noble Six, she was now in hysterics believing that both the Covenant and the Spartans were here to kill her. Jorge now had his hands full trying to get the girl to calm the hell down.

Six got back on his feet, retrieving his combat knife from the elite's head. As he was in the process of scraping the gore off of his blade and before any of the other Nobles to begin berating him for his actions, Six heard the squawk of jackals coming from the other room. Six turned his head in the direction of the noise, away from his fellow Spartans.

"There's more." Six said, making an about face in the opposite direction of his fellow Nobles. Looking to his right, he reached over to a nearby gun rack and grabbed an M392 'Designated-Marksman-Rifle' from its mantle. After charging his new rifle, Six made a quick about-face towards the door and replied to his squad mates, "I'll deal with this." He then holstered his rifle to the magnetic clamp on the back of his torso armor and with both hands pulled over the blast doors to the loading bay, effectively isolating him from the rest of Noble team.

After almost four minutes of small arms fire, grenade explosions, close quarter hand to hand techniques and Covenant death rattles, Six checked in with the rest of Noble team, to give the all clear.

"Kat needs you to reset a juncture." Carter said over the radio built into the Spartan's helmet. "Do it and get back here." He ordered.

"Affirmative" Six retorted in compliance with his new Commanding Officer's order.

"When you get back…" Carter spoke again. "There's something we need to discuss with you."

(End of flashback)

Six sighed in recollection of that "friendly fire" incident. Noble One made sure to leave that part out of Noble Team's after-action report. Carter had told him of the necessity of keeping B312 on board with the Spartan team. But he had warned Six that if he ever pulled a gun on another human, Noble Team would see to his own demise.

Since then he had complied whole heartedly to his commanding officer's order. For the first time in several years, he had been able to re-humanize himself. He found that he could work in cohesion with the other Spartans, in some instances at a greater capacity than he could before. Finally he could let go of being a cold blooded assassin and be the Spartan that Noble team needed him to be.

Six shook his thoughts away in frustration. '_This is pointless. I need to deliver my report and rendezvous with the rest of the squad. The more time I waste down here the longer it could take to get Noble Team ready for whatever desperate task that The Colonel has for us to do.'_ He thought as he turned yet again to face the elevators. He took a deep breath in an attempt to steady himself. Upon releasing it, he began his march towards the elevators yet again.

Unfortunately, through Six's bolstered determination he didn't hear the sound of elevator doors opening. Nor did he hear the footsteps of the elevators occupant emerging from it. So as he went to turn the corner he crashed into the person who had exited the elevator. Startled by the collision Six was jostled out from his tunnel vision and was able to see who he had just knocked over. Upon realizing who he had knocked over his mind immediately switched from 'deliver report' to 'aid & apologize profusely.'

"Oh shit, Dude, I'm sorry." Six said as he bent down towards the person he had just felled. He extended his right hand in an offering of assistance, cautious of causing any further provocation. Thankfully for him, his assistance was accepted as a bionic hand took firm hold of his.


End file.
